“You wish, I see, to talk of matters of faith,” said the Tartar.  “Now I may as well tell you at once, that I have no sort of skill in such matters, nor learning of any kind.  I never could learn anything when I was a boy.  I hated it so, that I broke the man’s head who was commissioned to teach me; and it produced such an effect on others, that nobody ever afterwards dared so much as shew me a book.  My boyhood was therefore passed as it should be, in horsemanship, and hunting, and learning to fight.  What is the good of a gentleman’s poring all day over a book?  Prowess to the knight, and prattle to the clergyman.  That is my motto.”

“I acknowledge,” returned Orlando, “that arms are the first consideration of a gentleman; but not at all that he does himself dishonour by knowledge.  On the contrary, knowledge is as great an embellishment of the rest of his attainments, as the flowers are to the meadow before us; and as to the knowledge of his Maker, the man that is without it is no better than a stock or a stone, or a brute beast.  Neither, without study, can he reach anything like a due sense of the depth and divineness of the contemplation.”

“Learned or not learned,” said Agrican, “you might skew yourself better bred than by endeavouring to make me talk on a subject on which you have me at a disadvantage.  I have frankly told you what sort of person I am; and I dare say, that you for your part are very learned and wise.  You will therefore permit me, if you say anything more of such things, to make you no answer.  If you choose to sleep, I wish you good night; but if you prefer talking, I recommend you to talk of fighting, or of fair ladies.  And, by the way, pray tell me-are you, or are you not, may I ask, that Orlando who makes such a noise in the world?  And what is it, pray, brings you into these parts?  Were you ever in love?  I suppose you must have been; for to be a knight, and never to have been in love, would be like being a man with no heart in his breast.”

The County replied, “Orlando I am, and in love I am.[2] Love has made me abandon every thing, and brought me into these distant regions; and to tell you all in one word, my heart is in the hands of the daughter of King Galafron.  You have come against him with fire and sword, to get possession of his castles and his dominions; and I have come to help him, for no object in the world but to please his daughter, and win her beautiful hand.  I care for nothing else in existence.”

Now when the Tartar king Agrican heard his antagonist speak in this manner, and knew him to be indeed Orlando, and to be in love with Angelica, his face changed colour for grief and jealousy, though it could not be seen for the darkness.  His heart began beating with such violence, that he felt as if he should have died.  “Well,” said he to Orlando, “we are to fight when it is daylight, and one or the other is to be left here, dead on the ground.  I have a proposal to make to you; nay, an entreaty.  My love is so excessive for the same lady, that I beg you to leave her to me.  I will owe you my thanks, and give up the fight myself.  I cannot bear that any one else should love her, and I live to see it.  Why, therefore, should either of us perish?  Give her up.  Not a soul shall know it."[3]